🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”